


Talking to Plants and Seeing People's Hearts

by animeandtrash



Category: Naruto
Genre: BAMF Haruno Sakura, F/M, Haruno Sakura-centric, POV Haruno Sakura, Protective Haruno Sakura, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Violence, loves everyone, sakura befriends zetsu, sakura learns to talk to plants, sakuras parents die, shes emphatic, then peoples hearts, wants to be everyones friend, wants to help people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-02-15 21:13:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18677488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/animeandtrash/pseuds/animeandtrash
Summary: They don't expect something pretty to be able to harm and maim so she has the upper hand. she will use that to her advantage. Three days before Uchiha Itachi is put under a genjutsu and kills half his own people Sakura's clan gets massacred leaving her the sole survivor.OR Sakura befriends Zetsu who teaches her how to talk to plants and she learns truths about those she loves





	1. pockets full of daisy's

She blinks and then they were gone.

Not went-to-the-store gone, not moved-out-of-sight gone, it was there-now-is-not. 

Dead.

She was picking flowers like she normally did only she wandered a bit too far and didn’t notice how the sun dipped lower from its place in the sky but she couldn’t help it for she was searching for a specific flower, the flower that she was going to find that day no matter what. She was a bright child and devoted much of her time looking at different flowers, learning their meanings and what they could be used for then show her Okasan all the knowledge she had on them. She had thought that when she got home her Okasan would scold her, _“Sakura you’ve got dirt everywhere.”_ She’d fuss at her face with a cloth to get some of it off then she’d sigh and ask, _“did you get anything good?”_ Then Sakura would have shown her Okasan the beautiful blue-violet flowers that she picked, _their aconite Okasan,_ she would tell her with a proud smile.

She was not expecting to come home to a silent house and a smell that reminded her of the time she sliced her knees and palms up while learning to climb a tree, a musty copper scent that she knew immediately was _bad bad bad_. Her small feet made a little sound on the carpet floor as she made her way to the kitchen, she was not prepared for what she saw. Her parent’s bodies lay side by side each other on their backs with their blood mixing together in what was like an ocean to Sakura. There was so much blood, she never knew that a person had that much inside them, it’s too much for her to fathom. She has a fleeting thought that her Okasan would have a fit if she saw this mess, would probably cruse that she just cleaned then as fast as the thought was there it left leaving her with the horrific fact that her parents were murdered. She walks one foot at a time until she is standing in between them at the base of their feet, she drops to her knees uncaring that she is getting blood on her, _her parent's blood_ her mind reminds her.

“Otou-san?” He is pale more tile white then his normal honey glow, she reaches down to hold his hand and finds it still warm. His green eyes – the same ones she has when she looks in the mirror – are half closed as if he’s just going to sleep.

She heard a slight noise to her other side, a sharp breath in, and she quickly turns to see her Okasan is still breathing. She grips her hand in hers, “Okasan, Okasan, Okasan.” It is a prayer that falls out of her mouth in little whispers.

( _She was going to tell her Okasan all about the aconite flower, how it was also called wolfsbane and how it means be cautious and oh she should have known)_

Her Okasan’s eyes are open, and she looks at Sakura all sea blue to her pale green. There is a faint twitch in her fingertips just a brush of a squeeze and she half says or maybe half exhales “Saku-” then she is gone too with the time it took Sakura to blink and she is left alone with only soft sobs to keep her company with her parent’s ghosts.

(|||)

That’s how they find her; covered in blood sitting next to her parent’s corpse’s in her empty house with their cold dead hands in hers. They move in quietly around her but she knows they are there, she can feel the floorboards echo their movements the second they were in the house. She thinks them odd with their porcelain masks shaped in different animal’s likeness, they are more doll-like than human to her.

_(She remembers a flower by the name of iberis with pretty white petals, also referred to as candytuft an odd name for they mean indifference)_

Someone with a weasel like mask picks her up and brings her outside to the front lawn where there are other people, they set her down on the ground and she struggles to resist the urge to hold on to them. They are alive and warm and not cold with death. Someone else puts a blanket around her and then a man in a red robe is standing in front of her.

He tells her that her whole clan in dead but does not give her any details as to what happened.

_(they won’t ever tell you because you’re just a dumb little kid her mind seethes, just a weak pathetic child.)_

She does not say anything just sits there thinking about her uncles and aunts and cousins and all the other Haruno’s that were there and then in a blink they're all gone. In a hushed tone, he says _I’m sorry for your loss_. Sakura looks up at him from underneath her wet pink lashes and her dirt hair his face is old and tired and sad.

She is the only one that survived and that’s probably only because she was out picking flowers which she just remembers are still in her pocket. She reaches down and pulls out a daisy from among the other green steamed plants, holds it out for the man who told her that everyone she has ever known is dead and says, “Daisies were the first flowers that I knew the name of because they were Okasan’s favourite.” He slowly reaches down to take the now blood-stained plant and when he does she speaks again, “Thank you for telling me.” She bows because her Okasan taught her that was the polite thing to do then wraps herself tighter into the blanket and makes herself small.

Sakura is alone and she wished that whoever killed her family had also killed her as well.

(|||)

The following days are a blur, she supposes that she was taken away and brought to the hospital to be looked at after she passed out on the ground. From the stiffness in her body, she thinks it must have been a long time unconscious.

She’s in the Konoha hospital in a room by herself in a white bed. She can hear feet scuffle down the hallway outside her room, but no one comes in. she can hear someone say, “it’s such a shame what happened to that clan. Their gonna have to have such a big funeral for all of them.”

Sakura assumes that they are talking about her and thinks about telling them that she too feels that she is among the dead before she once again fades into a dreamless sleep.

(|||)

She is wrong she discovers when she wakes up again. They were not talking about her they were talking about the Uchiha. It seems that during the three days that she spent asleep in the hospital that Itachi Uchiha, the heir, was put under a jutsu that compelled him to kill his clan. He murdered about half of his own family before he was subbed. Sakura learns through listening to the gossip that the nurses say while she pretends to be asleep that she knows one of the survivors as a raven hair boy in her class at the academy.

As the sun works its way down the sky to sleep she gets a visitor. It is the same man with the red robes who told her that her family is dead. Now out of shock, she recognizes that the man is the fourth Hokage. She slowly sits up on the hospital bed and watches as the older man walks to stand by her feet.

“I see you’re awake now.” His voice rumbles over the stillness and she nods at his question. “When your well and discharged you will be placed in the orphanage,” he says in a gentle tone, “you can remain in the academy if you wish.”

Sakura does not want to go to the orphanage where there will be other children in a small building and with not enough adults watching every moment of every day. No, she will not go so she asks the Third if she can remain of the Haruno compound, she is old enough to take care of herself and does not need to be taken anywhere.

It takes a little convincing for him to give in, he is a busy man and a predominate clan has just been half massacred – what is her small clan compared to the grand Uchiha? – he does not have time to waste on arguing with a pink haired girl. Besides, he looked at her academy records and she is the top of her class, a genius in her own right and she will do fine on her own he tells himself.


	2. the zetsu's and the forest life

After she leaves the hospital and The Third agrees to let her live on her own she wanders at the edge of the village not that far from her clan compound. It's here among the flowers and grasses and trees that finally allows her to choke back fresh air and finally breathe. She does not feel that she is the same Sakura her mother named her anymore, doesn't think she will ever be like before.

Out of the corner of her eye, she spots movement and wanders over that way. It could be any number of things a squirrel or a bear or a rabbit. She peered into the woods at the tree line and said a soft "Hello?"

Half-shadow and half-light are the first things Sakura registers when she comes face to face with the being known as Zetsu. The instant that she is trapped underneath his gaze she is under no illusions that he has the power to kill her at any moment. It didn't really bother her, either way, she was already dead or at least the Sakura from before was dead and the Sakura from after was just a cheap imitation.

"You're not scared of us?  **Most people are afraid of us.** " There are two different voices, two different personalities speaking.

She supposes that she should fear this creature and most children her age would be, but she has seen her parent's corpses and heard her mother's last breath, nothing will ever truly scare her again.

So, she settles for speaking the truth because her Okasan taught her that lying is unkind and to go against her teachings now feels like a betrayal on her tongue. "No, I'm not scared." She speaks softly looking the being in his two different coloured eyes because without a doubt he is not human but something other.

Sakura can see that this being is lonely, sees this because she too is lonely and lonely things seem to have a way of knowing each other, although she does not think he even realizes this himself, she doesn't even think he knows what that feeling is.

( _she doesn't really understand why but just like how her name is Sakura and the grass at her feet is green she knows this creature in a way unknown to others_ )

She takes out a flower she had picked not that far away and held it out towards him, "This is for you, I'll leave it right here." She laid it down into the soft green grass in the space between them. It is a compulsion that makes her do this, some part of her wanting to reach out to someone like her to be near someone that is not cold and dead dead dead.

He makes no move to reach for it but studies it with his eyes. "It is a Geraniums flower."

She smiles at him and it's not all fake, "it means friendship." She's never met anyone who knows flowers names.

"You're an interesting girl." She's been called worse, like billboard brow from the kids and annoying whispered from the adults all meant to belittle her, it doesn't really bother her anymore. So, she just smiles at him. " **A strange child to be smiling at us**."

"My names Sakura." She waits for him to tell him his but when he doesn't move to talk she asks shyly, "what's your name?"

"I'm white Zetsu!" His voice was the lighter of the two, " **I am black Zetsu**." The second voice is a deeper rougher.

So, he really is two different people then a voice says in her head. "Do you want to be," she shuffles her feet on the grass "friends?" She hasn't had any friends besides the other kids in her clan but now they're all dead and she is alone.

They look at her and tilt their head. "Strange  **strange**  girl." They say to her. It takes a while after that but both Zetsu's agree to be her friend and she is all grins and grabs Black Zetsu's hand and leads both to her favourite place.

"Come on I want to show you something beautiful." It's not far just across the field she was playing in and she wants to show her new friends the place that feels more home than her own body.

It's a secluded meadow tucked in behind some tall trees, it was full of colourful flowers grown taller and brighter in some cases than average plants, with lush grass and moss sweeping on the floor like a living sea of green. It was a wonder to see and if he liked flowers even half as much as she did he would like this place as well.

(|||)

After that Sakura spends all her free time with Zetsu, they meet in the forest where they first crossed paths, she doesn't have anyone to go home to, so she often spends whole days and nights with her new friend. She shows him the little ants that live in the dirt beside a growing tree her grandfather planted and the small river that snakes its way through the dense forest where the trout swim is silver streams, all her secret places she has never shown anyone; things that are beautiful only to beings like her and Zetsu, the things that grow and die and create something extraordinary.

He starts to teach her the language of plants, how to read nature energy and translate that into words she can understand, it opens the door to better understanding her own chakra and those around her.

_(It is a gift he is giving her, a wonderful and terrible gift, it will take her years to understand that she is the only one to ever have this power.)_

Sometimes only one Zetsu comes to see her, it was a shock the first time she saw them split into two separate bodies, but it turns out to be great.

On the days that it is only White Zetsu and her in the forest he teaches her more about plants, wherein the body is the most delicate spots that should be protected most (or where to hit your enemy so that they go down and stay down) and how to store her chakra. She learns a lot from him and when her head is so full of knowledge that it feels like it will burst they sit down next to a stream where she talks about eating with her family or how it felt to hug her cousins because he's so clueless to things like that, so she hopes that maybe she can help in this way. On the good days, she will hold his hand and tell him about her Okasan's awful singing and her Otosan's mixed scent of paper and ink.

When it's just Black Zetsu they go into a clearing and teaches her how to grow flowers bigger and faster with the aid of her growing chakra, how to grow plants from just their seeds in her palms, and how to know when a plant is at its peak to be eaten or used for medicine. In return Sakura tells him tales that her mother used to speak to her when it was time for her to sleep, all kinds of stories some with dragons and some with ninja, he always stayed quiet and still as she spoke, and it made her heart warm to know he loved these as much as she did.

Some days Zetsu is quiet so she settles herself beside him in the meadow and weaves flowers into each other to make crowns. Sometimes she hums a tune so that he knows she is there beside him, so he knows he is not alone when she is done she puts the colourful creation onto his head and smiles down at him.

She thinks in those moments with the light filtering through the trees and the grass whispering softly around them that if she could freeze a moment and live in it forever this would be it.


	3. Where the mother's children begin to make themselves

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> where little sakura loves the zetsu's and wants them to be happy and have names

Sakura lives and breathes and tastes the forest in a way that is inhuman, in the way both Zetsu’s taught her. It takes little time for her to learn it, Black Zetsu mentions something about almost perfect chakra which she won’t understand that until a few years later, but it takes her spending more time around plants and nature and the trees in order to understand.

It’s hard because she knows humans can be horrible and awful and cruel to each other and the forest does not live like that. The tree roots are interconnected _(there are types of trees, the ponderosa pine and the douglas-fir, that will send food to the dying ones and when Sakura learns this she cries and cries in her room)_ everything is woven together, and they depend on each other. This connectedness that humans have lost somewhere along the line of war and pain and fighting that makes her fumble a bit in understanding and translating the information she’s getting to something she can use.

It forces her to see things from a different viewpoint, to use her mind in a way she wouldn’t have had to otherwise.

(///)

It’s around the second time that the Zetsu’s separate to teach her things that she begins to fully realize just how different each Zetsu is, how fully they are their own beings that she thinks how sad it is they do not have their own names for when they are not attached together.

_(years later she will realize that this is the first time she looks underneath the underneath.)_

“Hey, umm Zetsu-san?” She asks while she’s making daffodils grow from seeds in her palm.

“Yes, Sakura-chan?” Zetsu rumbles

“Do you umm do you have names for when you’re not joined?” she asks softly to the yellow petaled flower. The silence stretches out between them until she looks up to see Zetsu tilting their head at her to the side in a confused manner.

She takes that as a no.

“Is there anything you’d like to be called?”

“I do not understand.” Black Zetsu asks and Sakura knows it's him because White Zetsu is softer in his tone to her.

“Do you have a name that you want to go by when it's just you and not you together?” maybe this is better, maybe this explanation will work. There is quiet with just the whisper of the wind rustling the grasses and the flowers and the leaves and Sakura loves this music more than anything in this world, so she is content to wait for however long they need.

“ **No, you** name us.”

Blink the feeling of her eyelashes on her cheeks, her heart goes donki donki in her chest and she can heat her teeth smile.

“White Zetsu I think should be Shiro! I took the white kanji and used it and for Black Zetsu, I think Kuro would be perfect.” Her lips are pulled back into a wide smile that hurts hurts hurts in the best way possible.

Shiro-who-was-once-White-Zetsu cheers and dances singing, “I have got a beautiful name! la la la my name is now Shiroooooo.”

Back-Zetsu-now-Kuro remains unmoved but Sakura feels a change ripple underneath his being that he quickly hides, “Kuro huh? I shall use it.”

“Thanks, Sakura-chan!” Shiro cheers and smiles and is so so happy.

_(she doesn’t know it, but this is the moment that changes everything)_

(///)

The Zetsu’s have never once in their long time on this planet encountered a human-like the little pink-haired child that follows after them and hangs onto their every word.

She even named them and hadn’t that been the most perfect moment that both have ever had. Their mother who created them hadn’t bothered to name them, so they did not think they needed one but this fragile pink thing that smiles and sings to thee flowers gave them each their own names.

Shiro is happy happy happy the type that he tastes on his tongue and makes flowers blossom.

Kuro is happy too but it is a different kind, he feels more gratitude and amazement and such profound feeling that he does not know if he wants to smile or cry.

This is the first of many moments to come that will lead them to reconsider just where they stand with their mother and the humans that she hates so much.


	4. the little girl, the garden and the beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> or zetsu is away and sakura is just trying to garden and can't this little girl just play in the dirt without something happening  
> or Sakura makes another interesting friend

She’s still left to her own devices until she starts that academy again in a month that the Hokage let her take off, whenever Zetsu is not there to teach her and play with her she is left to do what she desires, it’s during one of those times when Sakura makes an unusual friend.

She’s in her garden outside listening to the plants seeing if they need water or more sun, just listening to them chatter pleasantly around her when she hears a twig snap behind her; whirling around holding a garden shovel in her hand, small with a pointed end not really helpful but something she can use nonetheless, she sees a massive form stumbling out of the tree line.

  
At first, Sakura thought it was a bear or maybe but realized it was a wolf, an outrageously large wolf about the size of a bear that she's read about in one of her books. The animal seemed to be injured as it limped and favoured one side, covered in blood and mud to the point she didn’t know its fur colour. Just as it made its way out of the tree line and into the grassy area of her backyard it went tumbling down and didn’t stir. Sakura immediately ran over to the creature to see if she could help, dismissing the fact that its fangs were as big as her hands. When she gets closer she sees a large wound on its side bleeding steadily. In an instant, she rips off the apron she had on while gardening and applied pressure to stop the blood. She learned some healing from her books, giant textbooks that she takes from the library, she never wanted to see blood spill from the people that she loved again not if she could help it. The creature does not try to harm her or do anything for that matter it looks as if it’s passed out any moment from blood loss; when she thinks the blood has thickened to the point it won’t start pouring out again she runs inside to grab some bindings to wrap around the cut.

After spending more than an hour outside on her back lawn with the now identified male wolf she realized he would have to go inside for it gets chilly at night this time of year and that could lead him to get sick. So, she grabs a giant board that was going to be the siding of a new garden shed which her father had never gotten around to finish and uses that to pull the massive animal into the house. It's tough work and takes her a long time to get him in but she grins when she does.

She did it.

  
She ends up nursing him back for a week before he can move on his own. She spent every moment by his side making sure he had water and food and his bandages were fresh. She made herb paste to put on the wound to speed healing and water infused with plants to help with the pain. She even sleeps beside him just to be sure he’s all right. She thought about going into town and getting help but she didn’t know whether they’d do anything; what if they killed him because he was a wild animal, or he needed her when she was out in town? _(She also knows the evil humans keep in their hearts. After all her family was the victim of one of those hearts._ )

Besides it feels right to be here to do something of good, feels right somehow that this massive animal is here. It’s nice to have a warm body in the house other than her own.

Today is the day she decides to wash the creature down, she had up until now only cleaned area around the wound. He seems to be recovering nicely and spends most of his time sleeping for she feeds him herbs that allow him to remain dozy. While he is sleeping off the drugs she gave him, Sakura cleans him with a rag and a bowl of warm water.

She is in the process of walking out of the room to change the water out when a deep rumbling voice says, “What is your name pup?” She jumps about three feet into the air and knocks the bowl in her hand to the floor with a large bang and splash.

Turning around slowly to face the now very much awake and somehow talking wolf with wide eyes. She gets the faint feeling of amusement off of him and calms down a bit to squeak out, “Sakura.”

  
She just kind of stands there while he watches her, and she remembers learning from her father that when meeting a dog that you should always present your palm out towards them so that they can smell you. For some reason unknown to her, almost like the feeling she had when she met Zetsu, she just holds out her hand. He could easily chomp down and tear her hand into a mangled mess with little effort but all he does is sniff at her wrist, his snout and breath warm against her skin.

  
When she thinks he is done she waits for one heartbeat more then slowly pulls her hand back to her side. He makes a movement as if to stand up and she speaks, “You’ll pull your stitches if you move to fast.” A pause and then she looks at him in the eye, “You’re safe here, I give you my word that I will not allow anyone to harm you.”

  
She then steps forward and crouches so that she is level with his face and tilts her head to the side so that her neck is open bare to him. It's her way of showing that she is trusting him in the same way she wants him to trust her. It is an instinctual act with no thought out behind it and she's not even realizing what she's doing until he gives her a small huff that sends heat from her neck all the way to her toes.

“How long have I been here?” And so, begins her recounting of her finding him.

  
She learns from him that he’s part of the Inuzuka clan here in Konoha, a pack like a family who has a bond and partnership with their canine friends.

  
“What is your name?” Sakura asks while she gathers some food for him.

  
“Tau. It’s a rumble from deep inside his chest and that is the start of a friendship that would baffle most of Konoha when they come to learn of it.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also on fanfiction.net under the same title


End file.
